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Points-Based Immigration System

It is a pleasure to follow the sincere remarks of the hon. Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner), although I do not entirely agree with all of them. I commend the tone that the Minister set and his willingness to engage in debate and take interventions. I shall not go all the way towards consensus with him, although I agree with him on a number of points. The first point on which I agree with the Minister is that the timing of the debate is fortuitous, because earlier this month we had the report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs. It seems that in some quarters there are difficulties with the report's conclusion. I invite those with such difficulties to examine the first paragraph, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) correctly quoted. It states that the House of Lords examined the economic case for migration and found that net immigration did not generate"““significant economic benefits for the existing UK population.””" We cannot pick and choose from the arguments that were made in the report, and it is difficult to get away from that overall conclusion. For their part, the Government—including the Minister, perhaps bravely—put to the House of Lords their case that economic migration was an economic benefit, and the House of Lords rejected it. It rejected more or less every contention that the Minister put to it. He said that economic migration was of benefit to the country; the House of Lords said that it was not. The Government said that economic migration increased GDP; the House of Lords said—this is not from a newspaper but from the report itself—that that was based on"““an irrelevant and misleading criterion for assessing the economic impacts of immigration””." The Government said that economic migration was needed to meet skills shortages; the House of Lords said:"““We do not support the general claims that net immigration is indispensable to fill labour and skills shortages.””" The Government said that economic migration was good for the Exchequer; the House of Lords said:"““We also question the Government's claim that immigration has generated fiscal benefits.””" One could go through the whole list. The House of Lords categorically demolished the Government's case that migration is an economic benefit to the country. It is interesting that that has been the Government's case throughout their time in office, irrespective of the other issues that I have always believed are very important, such as population growth, population pressures and pressure on housing and public services. The Government have said that whatever was happening in those respects, immigration was in the economic interests of the country. Against that background, I shall put some brief questions to the Minister in an endeavour to establish what is now the Government's position. First and foremost, does the Minister expect the points-based system to bring about a reduction in inward migration, at least in the category of migration that is subject to it? We need an answer to that. Does he expect inward migration to be higher or lower? To put the matter in a wider context, is he content—some elements of his speech indicated that he might be—with the Government's official projection of net migration for the years to come, running at a level of 190,000 a year? That is the official projection of the Office for National Statistics, based on the work of the Government Actuary's Department. As the House of Lords pointed out, that number is equivalent to a city the size of Milton Keynes arriving in the UK every year. The vast majority come to England, and, as I think the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) well knows, the vast majority, or at least a majority, go to the south of England. Is the Minister content with the Government's projection that the population of the UK will grow from 60 million today to 71 million in 2031, with most of that growth taking place in England and the population of England growing from 51 million now to just over 60 million in 2031? Is he satisfied with that level of population growth and the implications that it has for the quality of life in this country? We need an answer—is he satisfied with that prospect? That would be equivalent to putting the existing populations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland into England by 2031. The Office for National Statistics has said that 69 per cent. of that population growth can be attributed, directly or indirectly, to net migration. Will the Minister say whether the points-based system will alter those projections, or will changing the way that people are selected mean that the projections will stay the same? Ministers claim that the points-based system will be more selective, but the more important question is how many migrants are admitted. Migrant workers might hold national vocational qualifications, bachelors or masters degrees, or doctorates—or, for the benefit of the hon. Member for Eastleigh, they might even be bankers. Regardless of the qualifications that they hold, however, they still need a roof over their heads, and that has implications for the numbers of households formed every year. It is frankly amazing that the Government have drawn no connection at all between migration policy, which is controlled by the Home Office, the population projections derived from that policy, and the housing policy that is implemented by another Department and which requires counties in the English regions to accommodate very substantial extra households. My county of Hertfordshire has been told to find room for about 80,000 more houses in the years leading up to 2021. In the same period, the borough of Hertsmere alone must find room for 5,000 new houses. I understand that that will be very difficult to accomplish without losing at least some of the green belt in the area. A significant proportion of the projected housing demand will arise from net migration, some of it covered by the points-based system. The Government have had to raise their estimate of that demand three times already since they came to office. The most recent estimate is that one third of household demand will come from migration, but that is based on an old figure and may have to be revised upwards in light of more recent population predictions. The House of Lords Select Committee was told in evidence that more than 200 new households per day will be generated by net migration in years, and one estimate is that more than 260 houses will have to be built every day. Is the Minister satisfied with that prospect? Does he plan to change anything to deal with it? Will the points-based system make any difference? In his opening remarks, the Minister referred briefly to the resident labour market test. In their written evidence to the House of Lords Committee, the Government said:"““Under the new Points-Based System, Resident Labour Market Test will only apply to jobs below a certain salary, since it is here that there is most public concern about the impacts of migrant labour on the domestic labour market””." That evidence was submitted in the autumn of last year. When he winds up the debate, will the Minister say whether it is still the Government's intention to remove the requirement for a resident labour market test above a certain level of income? If so, at what level of income will the test be removed? How does the policy sit with the Prime Minister's talk of British jobs for British workers? For its part, the House of Lords concluded that the resident labour market test was important for the employment opportunities of resident workers. It suggested that such a test should be properly enforced under the points-based system. I do not have as much confidence as I should like that the Government will be willing—or able—to implement that recommendation, especially given that we are still waiting to hear from them on the question of illegal workers. A year ago, Ministers discovered that workers were being employed illegally in the security industry, some of them guarding sensitive Government establishments. We have still to hear whether the Government have issued those workers with national insurance numbers. If the Minister knows that today, I ask him to give us an answer. One year on from first discovering that, how many of those workers were given national insurance numbers? Were any of them given numbers? Does the Minister know? A number of detailed questions arise from the Government's proposals, but the most important question is simply the effect that they will have on the Government's projections for population. Will more or fewer people be admitted to this country? The Government have presided over an unparalleled period in our history of population growth and, particularly, inward migration. The hon. Member for Eastleigh mentioned migration history. There has never been a period in history of such sustained and concentrated inward migration as that under the 10 years of this Government. Never before has inward migration reached the level that it has reached under this Government today. Well over 500,000 people are inwardly migrating every year. There is no time in history when that has been the case. If the Minister is aware of such a time, perhaps he will tell us. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Eastleigh knows, I would welcome hearing from him. I believe that the evidence from the Office for National Statistics shows that there has been no such time in the past 30 years. I do not think that there has been any such time in history.